Boxing: Memory wiped out by a blow

In a split second, boxer Patricia Devellerez lost a fight and all recollection of her most cherished moments, reports Keri Welham.

Patricia Devellerez remembers nothing of the boxing career that almost ended her life.

She flicks through photographs of herself, superbly toned and muscle-bound during her glory days in the ring.

She surveys the five champion trophies in her loungeroom and watches film of herself throwing winning combinations on video - but it doesn't ring any bells.

Gone, too, are memories of her 1996 wedding to Australian junior champion boxer Rocco Devellerez and her childhood with a fat cat called Smokey.

"I can't remember living my life," she said at home in Perth.

"How did I get to this position?"

The answer to that question is simple.

She was knocked unconscious and seriously injured when hit with a heavy right hand from New Zealand welterweight Agnes Tuitama during a bout in Christchurch on April 21.

The 26-year-old Devellerez collapsed, and fell in and out of consciousness. Then her body was convulsed by fits and spasms.

The crowd at the Richmond Working Men's Club, gathered for Australasia's first international female boxing event, watched in silence.

She was taken to hospital. Her brain was swollen and a small blood clot had formed on it. Doctors kept her in an induced coma and planted a small probe in her skull to monitor pressure.

Altogether, she spent a month in hospitals in Christchurch and Perth.

Aside from a lifetime of memories, Devellerez has lost peripheral vision in her right eye and can no longer drive or ride a bicycle.

She has shed 5kg and lost much of her elite athletic strength - but doctors say she is still stronger and better coordinated than most petite women.

"I'm very lucky," Devellerez said from her home in the Perth suburb of Beechboro.

She has been told about Gold Coast boxer Ahmad Popal, who died from injuries sustained in a Melbourne fight less than a month before her bout.

Husband Rocco says visions of Popal's death were fresh in his mind as he saw his wife fall.

"I was very shaken up, thinking it's going to happen to me. I'm going to lose her here," Rocco Devellerez said.

Patricia Devellerez, on leave from her job at an Osborne Park lunchbar, is now visiting a rehabilitation centre three times a week.

She does light weights and exercises to improve balance.

Her memory and vision are expected to return over time but for now, bubbly Devellerez needs constant supervision.

On a brief visit to the boxing gym where she started to train with her husband three years ago, she instinctively worked through combinations on the punching bag, asking: "Is this how you use it?"

She is an accredited level one boxing coach and says she would like to train boxers in the future.

Rocco Devellerez, a storeman on long service leave, said the couple planned a family and, if their children were interested in boxing, he and Patricia would coach them together.

She will return to the gym to maintain her fitness.

She says she knows the sport's critics will use her injury as ammunition in their efforts to have women's boxing banned.

"Everybody's got their opinion. They don't think women should be there at all. But I don't listen to those people," she said.

Rocco Devellerez, a fourth generation boxer and son of former Burmese national champion Patrick Devellerez, said amateur boxing would never be banned.

"They can try all they want.

"If boxers are fit enough to go into the ring and they're well-trained in that sport, you can't stop them.

"If you ban it, it will go underground."

He said the sport's training demands kept young people off the streets.

He had boxed since he was nine, and credited the sport with teaching him discipline, sportsmanship and confidence.

His wife accompanied him to a bout in Perth last week.

It was to be her first appearance in boxing circles in almost two months.

Patricia Devellerez made history in February last year when she won Australia's first official women's boxing bout.

She was Australia's light-welterweight champion and had a reputation as a fearless attacker.

But when she woke from her coma to hear she was a champion female boxer, she was sceptical.

"I said: Yeah, right, get stuffed. Who are you trying to kid?"

Since then, she has embraced her former sporting glory and is proud of her trophies and titles - even if she doesn't remember winning them.

Dressed in trackpants and preparing for a quiet walk in the sunshine, she says boxing will always be her passion.